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apostrophe

/əˈpɑːstrəfi/  ·  say it: uh·PAH·struh·fee

addressing an absent person or abstract idea directly

In Literary English

In more detail

1. (noun) a punctuation mark (') used to show that letters or numbers have been left out of a word, or to show that something belongs to someone

2. (noun) a sudden turn in a speech to address an absent person or a thing as if it were present

Examples

• 1. In "don't," the apostrophe shows that the 'o' has been removed from "do not."
• 2. The poet used apostrophe when she wrote, "O death, how cruel you are!"

How to use apostrophe

As a punctuation mark, apostrophe is the standard term in American and British English for the character used in contractions (don't, it's) and possessives (John's book). The second sense, referring to a rhetorical device where a speaker directly addresses someone absent or non-human, is more literary and less commonly used in everyday speech. The two senses are distinct in modern usage, though historically related through Greek rhetoric.

Common phrases

• apostrophe in contractions
• use an apostrophe
• missing apostrophe
• apostrophe splice
• apostrophe error
• direct apostrophe

Synonyms

contraction (sense 1) · possessive marker (sense 1) · invocation (sense 2) · address (sense 2)

Word family

apostrophic (adjective) · apostrophize (verb)

A common mistake

Learners often confuse apostrophes with quotation marks or misplace them in plurals (writing "apple's" instead of "apples"), a phenomenon sometimes called the grocer's apostrophe.

Nearby in Literary English

understatement, anagnorisis, antihero, assonance, caesura, chiasmus

Keep going

How to remember the words you read · Spaced repetition, explained